Verbal commands in an extreme situation?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I had to do it once.
I began yelling as I drew my gun.
Something along the lines of stop or I'll (insert expletive) shoot!
Show me your hands!
(expletive) NOW (expletive)!

I didn't have time to think about what I was saying. I just said it.

Thinking about the big old pig-sticker he had behind his back still gives me the heeby-jeebies.

No, I am not an LEO nor am I a security guard. I just happened to work in an area with a high concentration of bad people with bad habits. I don't work there anymore.
 
You, with an approved CCW permit and/or sufficient handgun trained MUST be the RULER of your life, NOT the bad guy.

Therefore, use any type profanity, authority and growling noises to let the perp know that you mean business...especially, when you're in a position of serious bodliy injury.
 
I'm 100% with El Tejon on this one.

By the time I draw, I am no longer seeking to influence the attacker's actions. Anything I say is to cover my butt. The situation might still de-escalate, but that is not what I'm trying to do when I yell "Stop!" as I draw.

A friend of mine took his CCW class and his instructor told him to yell "Puuuleeeze!" to try to confuse everyone. I can't see how anything good can possibly come of that.

A few very bad things to say come to mind. "Tell daddy how you like it!", "I'll make you famous," "Your move, b----," all are just showing anyone who might be watching that you are more interested in looking cool than taking a life and death decision seriously.

Ayoob gives advice about after the fact, saying that, if during the course of using deadly force to defend yourself you let your mouth get away from you, DON'T LIE ABOUT IT TO THE POLICE. Say exactly what happened. The jury will be more likely to forgive someone who said the double-mother-superior-of-all-swearwords in the heat of combat than they will believe someone whose story doesn't match the story of all the witnesses.
 
By the time I draw, I am no longer seeking to influence the attacker's actions.
Click to expand...

Does that mean you would not refrain from firing if the assailant stopped in his tracks and got down on the ground? And wouldn't that be the preferred outcome?

I realize we must be prepared to fire when we present a firearm - but that doesn't necessarily mean that we MUST fire every time.

Additionally, I would be hoping to influence the behaviour of the innocents in the vicinity.

  • I would like them to get out of the way (e.g., on the ground).
  • I would like them to know I'm one of the good guys.
  • I would like them to be able to identify (if possible) who did what, and that I did not just start shooting without warning (if there was time for a warning).
 
First time I had to draw I couldn't speak. It was like I had a mouth full of cotton and my mouth was riveted together. Every bit of me was completely amped, except my mouth. It seemed to freak that guy out because I wouldn't yap back at him. I just stood there quietly.
So, that's what I do now. I just get quiet.
Though, I do respect the teachings of people who know much more than I do about combat gunfighting. So, I'm not close-minded about it.
 
Verbal Commands

I'm partial to the statement : " Leave or you're not going to believe what happens next!"


John in eastern Ky.
 
I'm reminded of the threads that pop up ocassionally about what to say after a shooting. What I'm reminded of in particular is all the responses that basically said ,"You can practice saying what ever you want. By the time you get there you'll be too freaked out to remember it anyway."

ETA QUOTE:" I shifted my briefcase from my right hand to my left hand, unbuttoned my suit coat and stuck my right hand into my left armpit and smiled at them. They made a co-ordinated ninety degree turn and went out of the lot without ever looking back."

If you didn't have a gun that would probably qualify as ......... A really bad idea. ( I almost forgot this is The High Road)

As for identifying myself as a cop ......you ever heard "Hell freezes over"? Hell would freeze SOLID!
 
Last edited:
I'm sure there is great truth in the idea that no matter what you might plan to say (or do) - most if it goes out the window in a high stress situation like the kind we are talking about.

Nonetheless - just like training ourselves to shoot strait under those conditions - I think training ourselves to think strait could also be of value.
 
First time I had to draw I couldn't speak.
Click to expand...

I for one, know myself well, and one of the things I know is that I am often struck absolutely inarticulate in emergency mode.

This doesn't prevent me from taking reasonable action at all. Apparently, the neural gear needed for overdrive displaces my speech center, leaving only room for my most basic output routine, which is, apparently, "curse like a sailor".

As I spring into action, ~doing~ all the right things, the sentence and sentiment I want to shout is full and complete in my mind.

I will now temporarilly suspend Art's Grammaw's rules, as the essence and truth of the story is inextricably bound to obscenity. If anyone doesn't want to see 2/7 forbidden words printed, please, by all means skip the rest of this post.


..............












......






.




The earliest example is also a good example of an ooda loop. When I was walking down the hallway in high school, I Observed through the door, and the window of the room beyond, a thick plume of black smoke out the window. As I got to the next door, I Oriented to the idea that the school might be on fire. As I got to the next door, I Decided to take action, to alert the first teacher I could find. At the next door, I found the first teacher I could find.

In my mind, I queued up, "Look! There might be a fire!". My tunnel vision prevented me from seeing that there was actually a physics class in session.

So...what ended up happening was that a young Geek burst into a physics final, shouting "HOLY ****!" at the top of his lungs.

The teacher bore down on me, furious. "Mr. Geek. What exactly do mean by bursting into this room, shouting obscenities?" Eyes bulging, I stabbed my finger repeatedly at the window, as the increasing volume of black smoke wafted by. "****! Smoke! Fire! ****!"


It turned out that two rare things had coincided. It was one of the few days the school ran its incinerator, and it also happened to be a day of a temperature inversion, which brought the smoke down to near ground levels.

All things considered, I got off light.

-------------------------

Another striking example of the same phenomena happened a few years ago. I was sitting on my side of the office, and my wife was in her seat on the other, between me, and the door to the washroom. As I was working, the back of my mind registered that the washing machine had gone into drain mode. A few minutes later, I heard the sloshing and splashing that indicated that the stone basin the machine drains into had clogged, and was overflowing onto the basement floor. It had happened a couple of times before, and was a disaster in miniature.

Since gwa9mm was closer, I figured she might get there before me. In my mind, I queued up, "Hon! The washing machine is overflowing, get it quick!"

Well, she says it best.

"So, there I was playing solitaire on my laptop, when all of a sudden, you're leaping over the bookcase shouting "****. ****! ****itty **** **** ****! ****!" like a deranged wild man...."

We still double over in laughter whenever it comes up.
 
Say nothing... Cursing sounds like arguing...

I was instructed not to say anything. I was told that witnesses have a funny habit of remembering things a little different. I was told that shouting expletives (in the mind of a witness) sounds like arguing right before hearing gun shots. I will say stop (if I can remember to not shout expletives:)) and that's it.
 
I realize we must be prepared to fire when we present a firearm - but that doesn't necessarily mean that we MUST fire every time.
Click to expand...

That point deserves to stand out in this thread. There's a big difference between being prepared to take an action and intending to take it, and you've just summarized that difference well. I don't believe that any Concealed Weapons Permit holder intends to defend his life or that of his family. The permit allows one kind of preparation for doing so in circumstances that are compelling and unavoidable. There's the line between the bad guys and the good guys.

I agree with the writer who urged Massad Ayoob's Judicious Use of Deadly Force course. He, and it, are that good.

Another course that deserves more attention is the relatively new NRA course, Personal Protection Outside the Home. It draws upon Ayoob and other rock solid instructors, amalgamating their contributions most intelligently. The NRA textbook for that course is darned good.

As for what or whether to issue verbal commands in a self defense situation, I suspect that the response to such a situation will grow out of the situation. I don't think it's good to lie, though, or to pretend to be what you aren't. I also don't think it's a good idea to try to be clever, but maybe that's because I'm not clever.
 
Yelling police isn't going to be a big deal. Are you impersonating a police officer? If you are not flashing fake credentials, arresting people, and taking them to your private jail I don't imagine that there is enough legal liability in this tactic to worry about it.

As was said previously if you can solve the problem with verbal commands before the gun fire then you are golden. What nobody has addressed so far is that you might need to give him verbal commands both during and after shooting him. Give him instructions as to what he needs to in order to stop getting shot.

All of the cool guy hollywood responses are nonsense. That stuff works in situations where you wouldn't really need to shoot people. Anybody that is intimidated by a feral grin or a pithy one-liner is not a very credible threat. All of that nonsense will go out the window when you are facing a drawn gun, knife, or are otherwise on the receiving end of violence.
 
There are numerous accounts of Officers being fired upon, shot, and killed by people in tense situations. And, recently on the high road, we discussed a shooting in Cali where an officer was shouting that he was an officer as 4 guys tried to stomp him to death until he opened fire.
And, don't forget the unfortunate officer in the mall who was shot after he identified himself as an officer.
To pretend that inferring that you're an officer will somehow make you safe is pretty funny. There are people that will be overjoyed at the idea of killing a cop (you) and will take your admission as an opportunity for street cred. So, you should be prepared for that tactic to ratchet things up a few notches instead of down, if you want to try it.
Nevermind what the DA might do to you for making that claim if you win the prosecution lottery and he or she starts loading you up on charges when you're arraigned.

I would like to take some Ayoob classes and appreciate the heads up on the NRA class.
 
The last time I drew down on a guy (a couple of weeks ago, burglar coming OUT of a lady's window while she was upstairs in a closet with 911) I seem to recall saying something to the effect of "Get on the ground or I will blow your ****ing brains out."

He, of course, DIDN'T get on the ground and I had to chase the freakshow all over town before finally tackling him three blocks away.

So much for verbal commands.....
 
An interesting note, since the advent of body mikes and video tape, police officers have tended to clean up their language quite a bit when it comes to extreme situations. I'm not claiming that swear words don't come out in the heat of the moment, but tirades of profanity laced command are definitely not the norm anymore. That's a real easy way to undermine your own credibility in a court.

The old "POLICE, FREEZE M*********ER!" does not play well in front of a judge and jury. You can program yourself to give coherent, consistent commands in a commanding tone of voice, and they work. It just takes a lot of practice. Simple commands work best. Saying "freeze" immediately followed by "get down on the ground" is inconsistent and confusing. Better to say, "stop" followed by "show me your hands" and then whatever other commands are necessary. If it were a situation where I were carrying off duty and not trying to apprehend, something more along the line of "you need to step back" while assuming a bladed posture communicates clearly what needs to be said.

The point is, game it out, practice it, and it will work. We practice felony stops all the time and its a fairly complicated, drawn out sequence, especially if there's more than one person in the vehicle. It CAN be done.
 
As a police officer, I highly recommend that you DO NOT use the "Stop POLICE" command... You don't want to open yourself up to potential criminal liability, and a savy attacker who lives through such an encounter may be able to play the situation off as you being a police impersonator (a felony, at least in CO). That, along with witness testimony, could land you in a heap of trouble.

Aside from that one word, I strongly advocate saying something when you draw... Even if such a command comes at the same time that you begin shooting, or immediately afterwards. Fact is, witnesses remember what they heard, but not always in the order that it was said. You yelling "stop", "drop the weapon", "get away from me", etc, can seriously help your case if the shooting was brought into question.

And, in reality, if time/distance/situation allows, such a command may stop an attacker before they decide to advance on you.

Certainly the "average" citizen CCW permit holder generally has a more liberal criteria for when to use deadly physical force. The option isn't always as readily available to LEO's (depending on your governing statutes). As such, I have found myself in quite a few situations where I've been pointing a gun at someone without actually shooting them.

A case in point, from tonight's shift (which ended about 40 minutes ago). I had a call on a suspicious incident. I show up with my partner to find a profusely sweating guy standing in a field crying. As we approach my partner spots a knife that the subject had concealed in his hand (tucked behind his wrist). As we are drawing our weapons the subject hold the knife to his neck and says "are you here to help me?". We give commands for the subject to drop the knife, and he begs us to kill him or to let him kill himself. He starts to slowly advance on us (knife still to his neck), nearly pushing this situation to a deadly force encounter... Ultimately he drops the knife as the result of our verbal command/persuasion, and goes to the looney bin by ambulance (he also claimed to have smoked 20 rocks of crack today; a feat which the doctors said would have certainly killed him).

A normal citizen would likely not find themselves in a situation like this, for obvious reasons. But, it highlights how verbal commands ("drop the knife", "step away", "do not move towards me", "lay face down on the ground", etc) were effective in this instance. Moreover, had the subject forced a shooting, witnesses were clearly aware of the fact that we were faced with an armed subject, and were providing him with multiple verbal commands... They knew this, even if they couldn't clearly see what was happening in this dark field just off of a major road (I estimate that there were at least 15 eyewitnesses to this incident).

Anyway, just my $0.02
 
I think Tackleberry said it best in Police Academy.

"Drop that TV or I'll blow yer GD nutz off a-hole."

Clear, concise, attention getting, and to the point.
 
Thanks for all your posts so far. I am especially grateful to the LEOs that have responded to this question, as they have actually been in those situations where they would have shouted "Police!"

The conclusions I have drawn for myself so far are as follows:

Verbal commands should be used to advise the adversary. Sometimes they even work to end the threat - along with the appearance of your firearm. Often they have no effect at all. What have you got to lose?

That is not to say you should stop to chat while the miscreant is assaulting you with a deadly weapon. Depending upon circumstances, sometimes the command will be simulteaneous with the discharge of your firearm. sometimes it may even come after.

Commands should be simple, short, and clear. Avoid conflicting commands such as "Don't move!...Get down on the ground!".

Using the word "Police!" is not a good idea - unless you are one.

Commands may help to inform bystanders and potential witnesses what is going on. Or they may not remember hearing anything.

There are potential benefits from using strong, clear verbal commands and you have nothing to lose by doing so, as long as it does not distract you from the primary objective of survival.
 
I think rainbowbob pretty much nailed it. I would add one thing:

Always train to assume a position of advantage while you are giving the verbal commands. Having a nice tape loop programmed to play while you take your bladed posture, move off the X, seek and use obstacles is greatly to your advantage. You have to watch that, even in training. It's a little too easy to get involved in giving the speech while just standing there. It's the combination of strong verbal commands and body positioning that gives the best result. If you watch a cat with a dog, the cat doesn't growl and then puff up and hiss. It all happens at the same time.
 
rainbowbob said: There are potential benefits from using strong, clear verbal commands and you have nothing to lose by doing so
Click to expand...

Verbal commands . . .

I'm not persuaded they work with those who are comfortable with violence, and make a living preying on others.


Roughly 90% of communication has nothing to do with the words we use. How might we be able to communicate to a violent predator, in ways that he understands and respects, that we are not an easy lunch?

"Get back!" tells him you aren't comfortable with him being close to you. But it does not communicate to him what you are prepared to do if he continues making you feel uncomfortable. You know, all of us here know, but he doesn't. All he knows is you've told him you're uncomfortable with him there. And if you yelled it, you communicated not only are you uncomfortable, but you have a high anxiety level with the situation, too.

Guess what . . . Every person he's victimized before showed they were both uncomfortable and anxious with his actions and behavior. What makes this encounter any different for him?


If you decide to put issuing commands into your plan, you have to be prepared for your attacker to call your bluff.

Consider what your next action will be when the command, "Get away!" is answered with non-compliance. Non-compliance can take many forms. A simple reply - "No, get bent." He might hold his position, he might back off only half a step and smile. He may just decide to move in closer.

The bluff has been called. What's next?


What you're discussing is exploring ways to encourage the Criminal Actor to form restraining judgements, provided he's willing to doing so. The way we can accomplish this is to develop ways to announce and communicate to the VCA, in language that he understands, that we:

  • Recognize him for who he is and what he's about to do;
  • We are prepared to effectively respond and resist him;
  • In a fashion that appears both strong and comfortable, and not as a bluff.


How do commands such as, "Get Back!" or "Get on the ground!" accomplish any of those things?
 
He, of course, DIDN'T get on the ground and I had to chase the freakshow all over town before finally tackling him three blocks away.
So much for verbal commands.....
Click to expand...
Maybe he knew you were bluffing...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

I
  • Locked
Motel Robbery
Replies
18
Views
1K
Horsesense
H
L
  • Locked
Commands for the Civilian Self-Defender
2 3
Replies
51
Views
4K
SSN Vet
SSN Vet
T
  • Locked
How to stop a car break-in... W/O drawing
Replies
10
Views
707
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike
D
  • Locked
Verbal threats in Virginia.
Replies
24
Views
7K
Titan6
T
Z
  • Locked
Verbal Tactics_Pithy responses to Anti remarks
Replies
18
Views
2K
BullfrogKen
B
Back
Top